Delia Akeley
Delia Julia "Mickie" Akeley (Denning, formerly Reiss, later Howe; December 5, 1869 – May 22, 1970) was an American explorer. She was born in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, a daughter of Irish immigrants, Patrick and Margaret (Hanberry) Denning.
Also recorded as Delia Julia Denning Howe Akeley · D J Akeley · Delia Julia Akeley
Delia Akeley

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- Name
- Delia J.
- Birth Name
- Delia Julia Denning
- Born
- 5 December 1869
- Birthplace
- Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, U.S.
- Died
- 22 May 1970
- Place of death
- Daytona Beach, Florida, U.S.
- Occupation
- Explorer; hunter
- Nationality
- United States
VALÉORINE Encyclopedia
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Documentary summary
Delia Julia "Mickie" Akeley (Denning, formerly Reiss, later Howe; December 5, 1869 – May 22, 1970) was an American explorer. She was born in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, a daughter of Irish immigrants, Patrick and Margaret (Hanberry) Denning.
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Note VALÉORINE
Delia Akeley (1869–1970) was an explorer, hunter and photographer, among other activities, of American nationality. The explorer was born in Beaver Dam and died in Daytona Beach. Delia Akeley worked for Field Museum of Natural History.
Composed from admitted, traceable facts · 26 September 2026
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wikidata · Q3021599 · wikipedia · Delia Akeley
In this article
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Delia J. Akeley • Birth Name — Delia Julia Denning • Born — 5 December 1869 • Birthplace — Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, U.S. • Died — 22 May 1970 • Place of death — Daytona Beach, Florida, U.S. • Other Names — Mickie Akeley • Occupation — Explorer; hunter
Early life
Early life
Delia Julia Akeley was born in 1869, although over the years, whether due to Delia's own misrepresentation or that of others, her birth year has been given as 1875. She ran away from home in her late teens and made her way to Milwaukee, where she married Arthur Reiss, a barber, in 1889. She was just shy of her 20th birthday, but because of the erroneous attribution of her birth date, virtually every published account states that she was 14 when she married Reiss.
With Carl E. Akeley
With Carl E. Akeley
In Milwaukee she met taxidermist, artist and inventor Carl E. Akeley, who was employed at the Milwaukee Public Museum. Akeley biographers Penelope Bodry-Sanders and Jay Kirk suggest that Delia and Akeley had an affair; in any case, Delia and Reiss soon divorced, and in 1902 Delia married Akeley, who by then had become Taxidermist-in-Chief at the Field Columbian Museum in Chicago, later the Field Museum of Natural History. • Illustration — Delia Akeley with her kill (1906) During his years at the Field, she assisted her husband in the creation of his groundbreaking Four Seasons of the Virginia Deer dioramas, and joined him on a 1906-07 collecting expedition to Africa. Akeley later joined the American Museum of Natural History in New York where he continued his taxidermy work and conceived the great Africa Hall. Delia accompanied Akeley on expeditions to collect specimens central to the most important displays in the African sections of both museums. The larger of the mounted African elephants known as the "Fighting Bulls" in the Field Museum's main hall was killed by Delia on the 1906 Field Museum expedition, and she also collected one of the members of the elephant group in the African Hall at the American Museum of Natural History on a 1909-11 expedition for that museum. In Kenya, when hunting the elephants that were to form the most important of all the displays in the African Hall of the American Museum of Natural History, Carl Akeley was attacked by a bull elephant while out hunting with a team of his porters and helpers. They panicked and ran thinking he was done for. But Akeley survived, in no small part because Delia traveled back to his body with two porters who had initially fled in terror. He was seriously injured, but Delia got him to a hospital after a dangerous portage in mountainous country. She also nursed him back from the brink of death on at least one other occasion when he would have succumbed to blackwater fever 2 In 1920, after Carl's recovery from blackwater fever, the Akeleys returned to New York accompanied by a pet monkey called "J.T. Jr.", acquired by the Akeleys during their last expeditions in Kenya. Back in New York, Carl Akeley spent his time raising money for the museum, sculpting models for his dioramas, and becoming better acquainted with Mary Lenore Jobe (1878–1966), a former debutante and Bryn Mawr graduate who had become an African explorer and ethnographer. Delia became increasingly occupied with the care and study of J.T. who was an extremely bright and jealous primate. Both Bodry-Sanders and Kirk suggest that Delia's obsession with the monkey, and increasing isolation from the outside world, contributed to the deterioration of the Akeley marriage, and an acrimonious divorce occurred in 1923. Carl married his second wife, Mary, in 1924 when he was 60 and she was 46. Both returned to Africa to hunt and study the mountain gorillas. In 1926, Carl contracted what has been described as dysentery but involved aggressive progression and aggressive bleeding from his orifices.
Later life
Later life
In 1924, after her divorce, Delia continued to travel widely in Africa leading her own expeditions and concentrating more on the ethnography of the more reclusive tribes such as the Forest People pygmies. She was one of the first westerners to explore the desert between Kenya and Ethiopia, and she explored the Tana River in a dugout canoe, entering it from the Indian Ocean. She also lived for several months with the pygmies of the Ituri Forest, Zaire. On January 4, 1939, she married Warren D. Howe, a businessman, who died in 1951. She was listed in the 1946 edition of Who's Who in America.
Death
Death
Delia Akeley died in 1970. Although her obituary lists her age at the time of death as 95, she was in fact 100 years old.
Identity
Identity
Delia Akeley is recorded as explorer, photographer, zoological collector, hunter and writer.
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 2 entries
1869
Delia Akeley born at Beaver Dam.
1970
Delia Akeley died at Daytona Beach.
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
Beaver Dam.
Birth place
Daytona Beach.
Death place
Primary material
Documents and archives
reference work
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q3021599: Delia Akeley
Reputable secondary · Wikimedia Foundation
- “Delia Akeley”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
scholarly index
- OpenAlex author record A5094326272 for Delia Akeley.
Unverified · OpenAlex
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). U.S. Census, 1880.
- 2.Wisconsin Marriages, 1836-1930. Family Search database.
- 3.Bodry-Sanders, Penelope. African Obsession: The Life and Legacy of Carl Akeley. Batax. 1998.
- 4.Kirk, Jay. Kingdom Under Glass. Holt. 2010. 978-0-8050-9282-0.
- 5.Mrs. Delia Akeley Howe Dead; Explorer and Hunter in Africa. The New York Times. 22. May 23, 1970.
- 6.Akeley, Carl. Elephant Hunting on Mt. Kenya: A Woman Wins Record pair of Elephant Tusks for a Sportsman's License in British East Africa. American Museum Journal. 15. 7. 323–28. November 1915.
- 7.Our Amazing Planet Staff. 8 Unsung Women Explorers. LiveScience.com. 30 April 2012.
- 8.Delia Akeley, "Jungle Rescue", Jungle Portraits, pg. 249 (The MacMillan Company, 1930).
- 9.Carl Akeley's Fighting African Elephants. 11 December 2013.
- 10.Jungle Portraits, pp. 159-229
- 11.DELIA AKELEY BACK WITH PIGMY LORE. The New York Times. 17. June 27, 1930.
- 12.Chicago Sunday Tribune. Dr. Warren D. Howe weds Mrs. Delia Akeley, Explorer. January 29, 1939.
- 13.Daytona Beach Sunday News-Journal. Delia Akeley Howe, Explorer, Dies. May 24, 1970.
- 14.Margo McLoone, Women explorers in Africa: Christina Dodwell, Delia Akeley, Mary Kingsley, Florence von Sass-Baker, and Alexandrine Tinne, Capstone Press, 1997.
- 15.Verwegene Frauen Weiblicher Entdeckergeist und die Erforschung der Welt (Terra Magica: 2009) / )
Bibliography printed in the source article · 13
- Jungle Portraits
- All True!
- J.T. Junior: The Biography of an African Monkey (Macmillan: 1928)
- Women explorers in Africa (1997). Margo McLoone, Women explorers in Africa: Christina Dodwell, Delia Akeley, Mary Kingsley, Florence von Sass-Baker, and Alexandrine Tinne, Capstone Press, 1997.
- Verwegene Frauen Weiblicher Entdeckergeist und die Erforschung der Welt, written by Lorie Karnath. Verwegene Frauen Weiblicher Entdeckergeist und die Erforschung der Welt (Terra Magica: 2009) / )
- Duncan, Joyce. Ahead of their time : a biographical dictionary of risk-taking women. Greenwood Press. 2010. 978-0313316609.
- Delia J. Akeley, J.T. Junior: The Biography of an African Monkey (Macmillan Company, 1928)
- D. Akeley, Jungle Portraits (The Macmillan Company, 1930)
- Penelope Body-Sanders, African Obsession: The Life and Legacy of Carl Akeley (Batax, 1998); /
- Lorie Karnath, Verwegene Frauen Weiblicher Entdeckergeist und die Erforschung der Welt (Terra Magica, 2009) )
- Jay Kirk, Kingdom Under Glass: A Tale of Obsession, Adventure, and One Man's Quest to Preserve the World's Great Animals (Henry Holt and Co., 2010); ASIN: B0057DAQ54
- Elizabeth Fagg Olds, Women of the Four Winds: The Adventures of Four of America's First Women Explorers (Mariner Books, 1999); /
- Douglas J. Preston, Dinosaurs in the Attic (St. Martin's Griffin; Reissue edition (November 15, 1993)), /
References
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
scholarly index
Partially resolvedreference work
Wikidata, structured authority record Q3021599: Delia AkeleyWikimedia Foundation
Partially resolvedreference work
Partially resolved
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 14 August 2026.
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